What is this "Standing" Business?

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeal heard oral arguments in the Prop. 8 case yesterday.  If you heard or read any of the news reports, you likely heard about the issue of "standing."  In a case that raises big meaty constitutional, philosophical, and moral issues surrounding marriage--same-sex marriage in particular--you might be surprised that the key issue appears to be basically procedural.

So what is this whole "standing" thing, anyway?  Basically, "standing" means that a party to a law suit actually has an interest in the controversy; i.e. they actually suffered an injury because of another party's action.  It's not enough to simply not like something, or to simply be offended by something someone else does.  You have to actually be injured in some way.

Why does this matter?  At the top, it's about practicality.  Lawsuits consume a lot of time, energy, and money--none of which are limitless--so the legal system has to create some method of limiting the number of potential lawsuits.  If we could all sue anyone simply because we didn't like what they were doing, the courts would be even more backlogged than they already are.  The important cases would get lost in the mess; collective injustice being the result because the courts' ability to redress genuine wrongs would be essentially nonexistent.

That would be bad enough on its own, but there is a deeper issue at work as well.  Standing is also about liberty.  If everyone could sue without showing standing--proving they suffered a real injury--then no one could live freely.  Your personal liberty should not be curtailed unless the exercise of that liberty harms others.

Consider the standing issue in the Prop. 8 appeal.  Supporters of Prop. 8 brought suit to keep same-sex couples from marrying.  The court wants to know how same sex marriage actually harms anyone?  Clearly, if there is a fundamental right to marry that the people of California cannot deny same-sex couples, those same-sex couples are injured by Prop. 8's enforcement.  The same cannot be said of people who oppose same-sex marriage.  Sure, they may not approve but that is thin ice in terms of injury.  Essentially, the court is asking Prop. 8 defenders, "where's the beef?"

California and Arizona's Laws Compared

It was pointed out to me that California has a law on its books similar to Arizona's new immigration statute.  This was pretty surprising, so I looked it up.  Well . . . they're similar, but only in the broadest sense.

Bikes & Rules of Recognition

Apparently there is a big split among bike commuting advocates about traffic laws. While everyone agrees that the current rules of the road in most cities are designed to benefit drivers at everyone else's expense, one group claims bikers should follow the current rules while another holds that to do that adds up to treason against the entire bicycle community.

The dissenters' argument boils down to this: bikes are different than cars and need their own, bike-specific traffic laws; since they don't have those, the current laws are invalid; since the current laws are invalid, cyclists shouldn't follow them. Well, that sounds fine at first - especially because it rips off some old fashioned American political rhetoric - but there's a big difference between "invalid" laws that are unjust (e.g. segregation) and those that are invalid merely because they could be better.

The really bad principle behind the argument that bikers shouldn't follow the traffic laws is that only cyclists are considered capable of determining whether traffic laws are valid. No dice, friends. If you don't like the current rules, agitate to change them - but I missed the memo giving Critical Mass a veto over traffic laws.

Public Service Announcement

1. Americans do not watch class action suits like they are the Roman games.
2. That woman burned by the McDonald's coffee? She was disfigured for life in some very sad, personal ways, and this had happened to more than McD's customer before. The jury smacked McDonald's because McDonald's was negligent and callous and disregarded basic standards of human decency.
3. We have a more or less non-existent social welfare system. When we get hurt and lose our jobs, we don't still get to take our two week national naptime (I'm looking at you, Holland).
4. Some of us have actually heard of your country and do know where to find it on the map.
5. You need immigrants, you idiots. Shut up and let them make money.
6. Seriously, guy - I know more about your country than you know about mine. Cut me some slack. I really like it here. I happily disfigure your language all the time. I even made a joke in German today. That's the second this week. Yes, dammit - I play soccer all the time . . . and, yes, I understand offsides.